


LIGHT HOUSEKEEPING

by ivorygates



Series: No Quarter [2]
Category: No Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Curtain Fic, I suck at tagging, I've lost track of the matryoshka AUs, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Military Homophobia, Period-Typical Homophobia, Yes I Channel IKEA, at least it's short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-18
Updated: 2007-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-14 06:20:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17503265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivorygates/pseuds/ivorygates
Summary: "They don't call it 'The Protestant Vatican' for nothing," Jack points out.PS: This will make more sense if you've read "Three Missions On Which It Was Much Better That Danny Was INORDINATELY Gay. Really." first.





	LIGHT HOUSEKEEPING

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Notes: This was written sometime around 2007/8 as far as I can remember; it's a bit of "No Quarter" from sometime before Jack and Danny became lovers.
> 
> The title "Light Housekeeping" is a play-on-concept that isn't going to make a lot of sense to persons who are not of a certain age: it's a midcentury slang term used to refer to two people (at the time, usually a man and a woman) who had moved in together and were assumed to be having illicit sex. It implies a louche (AKA disreputable or sordid in a rakish or appealing way) looseness of morals for which there isn't really a solid contemporary equivalent (or if there is, I've never met it).
> 
> I once had a firm idea of what I was going for here. Feel free to let me know your guess on what it was.

"So how long have you been on the down low?" Danny asks.

It's weird and comfortable and a little disturbing having Danny around full-time. What he wants and needs has never been something Danny has had to hide, and he sees no reason it shouldn't be a topic of conversation, at least in the house. (Thank god O'Neill has always kept up the habit of sweeping the place for bugs.) Danny knows better than to out him when they're at work—or around their teammates—but O'Neill knows that Danny thinks those regulations are both evil and stupid, and O'Neill's just praying that there doesn't come a day when Danny slips up.

"I've never been on the down low," O'Neill answers.

Danny regards him mockingly. He stretches lasciviously—he's lying on the rug in front of the fireplace; one of his additions to the décor Chez O'Neill: it's some kind of fur thing that you're supposed to rake—and his implication is plain. He wants Danny. Danny knows it. Danny's pretty sure it's only a matter of time before he gives in, because Danny's made his own interest more than plain.

"The down low," O'Neill says, "is for straight guys who do other guys on the side. I switch-hit. I've been in the closet."

"Semantics," Danny says.

"Thought that would be your field."

"Part of one of them. So?"

"I'm in the _Air Force."_

"Yeaaah.... That's kind of hard to miss. The haircut, the dog-tags ... the uniform was the real giveaway, though."

"I went to the Academy right out of high school. You're required to be of good moral character to apply."

Danny looks both angry and sorry he ever brought this up, but he isn't going to back down. (If he did, O'Neill would have to check him for fever and put in a call to Frasier.) "Good moral character meaning straight-as-a-ruler."

"They don't call it 'The Protestant Vatican,' for nothing," Jack points out. Danny grimaces. "I already knew I wanted the Academy back in High School. I raised a little hell, but not too much."

"And you dated girls."

"It was bumfuck Minnesota in the sixties, Danny. _Nobody_ dated boys." Or kissed them. He'd been terrified of wanting what he wanted. But those few secret mutual jerk-off sessions had been paralyzingly sweet, even though they'd both pretended it was just horseplay. Fooling around. The kind of thing guys did.

Maybe it had been, for the others.

Danny sighs. "Well, I guess neither one of us is going to be doing any dating now."

"That's right." Because there's a seventeen-page rider on Dr. Jackson's employment contract ensuring that _he_ isn't, and the only person O'Neill wants to date now is writhing around on his fur rug like a cat in heat.

###


End file.
